


The Good Old Days

by Artan



Series: Fluency AU [5]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, History, Interspecies Relationship(s), Language Differences, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artan/pseuds/Artan
Summary: Girl's night leads to a much needed meeting.  As the weather grows cold and night darkens Judy learns of the past.Some questions have hard answers, and the past is never truly dead.  Today, however, is for those who live to seize and improve.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Bold is Vulpine  
> Italics are Lapine

It was Pool Night at the Broken Ladder, Finnick and Nick’s bar of choice.  While the two foxes spent the evening drinking with their old friends, those that were still willing to see them, Judy held Girl’s Night. Most times that meant visiting Fru-fru and little Judy or entertaining her family members on the rare occasions they came to visit.  Tonight was different; she had a special invitation to spend time with Marie Ann Wilde.

She rubbed the spot on her throat where Nick had marked her before he left.  As the weather became chillier her fox had become more pawsy and amorous.  She shook her head before tightening a purple scarf around her neck.  December was just days away and snow was due in the week ahead.  Outside, the wind was brisk and cold on the walk to the bus stop.  Judy thought back to the preparations the ZPD had performed months ago as she waited.  Little Rodentia required the assistance of the wider and larger city to safely manage the winter.  When you were only a few inches tall, even the lightest snowfall was crippling.  Her train of thought was suddenly broken by the whine of hydraulic brakes.  The bus had arrived.

Mrs. Wilde lived in an awkward section of town to reach, north of the downtown high-rises.  If Judy had taken the metro, she could arrive there faster but would have been forced to walk a further distance from the station to the Vixen Matron’s townhouse.  The bus however was much slower but had less exposure to the cold.  A good thing since her winter coat was never thick enough for this time of year.  Nick on the other paw had been shedding enough for the both of them.  Over the past week she had been finding his long, orange guard hairs all around their apartment.  The precinct was worse at times, with all of the wolves.  As she soldiered through the worsening weather Marie’s front door was a welcome sight.

Judy barely had to knock before she was ushered into the front hall with an efficiency that even her mother would be proud of.  Her coat and scarf vanished into the nearby closet before the slightly greying vixen turned to her.  “ **Daughter, make yourself welcome.  Anything you may need will be given freely and without reserve.** ”  Judy let her ears drop during the formalized greeting.  She was surprised by what she heard and nearly replied in formal Lapine, managing to catch herself at the last moment.  “ **I am honored by your invitation, Matron.  Should you require anything, our door is always open to you.** ”  With formalities addressed the rabbit found herself under the polite scrutiny of her host.  Something about her paw seemed to have caught the vixen’s attention.

Although her engagement ring did attract a few glances there seemed to be something else that garnered such interest.  Marie suddenly embraced her for a few moments before leading Judy to an open family room.  The smile on Marie’s muzzle seemed to mimic a more familiar smirk from her mate as the two sat down.  “ **Let me guess,** ” She started, “ **You have no idea what all that was about.** ”  Judy’s sheepish expression spoke for her.  “ **My son’s scent mark was on your paw.  Where you are marked is sometimes just as important as being marked.** ”  Nick hadn’t spoken about this before, although it could have just skipped his mind.  He really could be forgetful at times.  “ **A mark on the paws, for instance, is usually a sign of submission for the marked one.  At best, it can be very rude.  I was happy to be proven wrong.** ”  Judy was intrigued.  “ **What do you mean?** ”  Marie sighed.  “ **It looks like my son would forget his own head if it wasn’t attached to his shoulders.  There are two common places to be marked.  The head or the throat.  The head is for those whom you are familiar with, such as family or close friends.  The throat is something much more special.  Especially in your case.** ”  The emphasis was clear in her voice.  “ **The throat is only ever marked by one’s Soulmate.  It’s an expression of absolute trust and devotion.  To place that much faith in another mammal is truly something special.  For a prey however, it is even rarer.** ”  Judy felt her heart melt as she realized just how much she meant to her mate.

They ate dinner together, and drank wine.  Marie used more protein in her cooking than Judy was used to.  Everything was delicious but she was glad she brought a Protaid.  The two made small talk in the close quarters of the kitchen before returning to the couches and chairs of the family room.  It seemed Nick’s belly was no longer as ticklish as it once was, but he would still melt if she rubbed his ears the right way.  Judy spoke a bit about her childhood, her parents, and all of her siblings back home.  At times she had to lapse back into common, having let her mouth get ahead of her mind.  Finally, Marie broached the question Judy had been waiting for.  “ **I can’t believe your brothers did that,** ” Marie said, ending Judy’s story. “ **But I have to ask, where did you get that ring?** ”

Judy couldn’t help but smile as she remembered that night.  Nick was so nervous, despite his years of putting up a false front.  “ **It’s from Nick.** ”  She replied.  “ **He decided to blend the traditions we were both familiar with, and proposed under the light of the Red Moon.** ”  Marie’s sharp intake of breath stopped Judy in her tracks there.  The Matron vixen looked ready to cry before she took a moment to properly compose herself.  “ **You know what that means, right?** ”  She heard Marie’s voice tremble as she spoke, the rabbit’s voice was rock solid however.  “ **I do, I was on the verge as he asked.  However for Lapines, there was someone I had thought he was missing.  What happened to Nick’s father?** ”  The response she received made her slightly uneasy.  “ **Let me get another glass of wine.  This will be a long story.** ”

The deep red liquid swirled in the glass as the vixen sniffed it, before taking a long sip.  “ **John.** ”  She began simply.  “ **His name was John Wilde; we had met on the train heading to the budding downtown thirty-seven years ago.  At the time, I was a receptionist for one of the growing hospitals while he was a handsome tod who was trying to strike out on his own.** ”  Marie and Judy both smiled at this part, one remembering happier days while the other saw a reflection of her own life.  “ **He was a tailor, and after chafing under the paws of several sartors and seamstresses he wanted to start his own business.  John always saw the best in mammals; it was one of the things about him that I loved.  He believed that everyone deserved a chance and that he could help them get that chance.  Back in those days, the animosity towards us predators was more open.  At best, we would find ourselves denied service or distrusted.  Commonly, we were told we couldn’t purchase things and weren’t welcome back.  Nothing was exempt from this.  Even finding a small apartment for the two of us was an ordeal.  After a few months rent, most places threw us out.  After all, when there are ten prey to every predator it is easy to find a new, safer, more trustworthy tenant.** ”

Marie paused for a moment, taking a fortifying mouthful of wine.  “ **John had honestly wanted to help everyone, and he felt the best way he could do that was to give mammals a good first impression.  He thought that if he could just get someone’s paw in the door, their true character would shine through.  It took him several years to get enough money to start his dream.** ”  Judy politely interjected.  “ **What took him so long?  He sounds like an exemplary mammal.** ”  Her host’s response was somber.  “ **He was a fox.  Who in their right mind would lend money to one of them?  You wouldn’t get anything in return.** ”  Judy’s ears dropped and she stared pensively into her own glass as the vixen continued her account.

“ **He worked hard to get a meager line of credit and managed to open a storefront in the south of Savanah Central, on the edge of Happytown.  Nearly all of us predators lived there.  Close to the docks yet far enough away from other, more respectable elements of society.  Some pred shopkeepers would refuse to serve prey, their own selfish way of striking out at the society that beat them down.  John wasn’t like that.  He would help any mammal that walked through his door.  He didn’t care what teeth you had or where you were from; he just wanted to make the best clothing he could.** ”

Judy knew the city’s history was a far cry from the harmony it attempted to embody today.  However, there was a world of difference between reading a clean, sanitized version of the past and hearing how it was first paw.  She looked down again and noticed her wineglass was mostly empty, for the second time that evening.  After she had refilled her glass, the story continued.  “ **I was proud of him.** ”  Marie stated.  “ **He worked to give everyone a better life, despite all of the odds stacked against him.  We courted each other for a year, then declared each other Soulmates and married.  We kept his last name; I never liked being called Taffer anyways.  He opened Wilde and Sons’ shortly before winter, and two years later we had Nick.  He always did look more like his father.  He has his eyes and tail.** ”  Judy watched the Matron’s eyes close as she threw back the remainder of her wine.  Between the two of them, with the discussion they had been having, they emptied more than half of the appropriately fox sized bottle.  It seemed this next part was going to be the hardest to tell.

“ **John ran his business for five years, before The Riots.** ”  The capital letters were audible in her voice.  “ **Those three we spent together as a family were some of the happiest years in my life.  We had everything going our way and the future looked bright.  Nick started walking early, but began talking late.  The Riots took John far too soon.  He was old enough to remember some of his father, but too young to know what he had lost.** ”  Both females knew they had danced around the hard topic for long enough.

Sometimes called the Happytown Riots, this time of unrest had been almost glossed over during Judy’s education in Bunnyburrow.  Now she was getting an eyewitness account.  It was a grim reminder of the city’s troubled past.  “ **We could both feel the tension in the weeks leading up to the riots, but John thought little of it.  This wasn’t the first time we had experienced civil unrest, but it would be the one everyone remembered.  It began in mid-July, we didn’t know what had occurred on the morning of the seventeenth but news traveled fast amongst the neighborhoods and city blocks.  Apparently the police were rounding up preds again.  We had no idea there was an illegal bar in one of the union meeting halls, but nobody cared.  Some of our neighbors left to see what the disturbance was, but most of us went about our day as usual.  The columns of smoke elsewhere in the district should have been a clear warning for us.  I was nervous that whole day as plumes of smoke spread.  Both young Nick and I could hear the wail of fire engines.  John arrived home that evening reeking of smoke.** ”

Marie paused for a moment to explain something.  “ **We lived on the southern side of Happytown in some of the better neighborhoods, if that could ever truly apply to Happytown.  Wilde and Sons’ was on the north side of the district.  John and I both knew it was a fair distance away from the apartment, but he felt he could better serve mammals there.  The days I had visited the store proved him right, mammals were always looking to him for help.  The evening of the seventeenth, I warned him not to go back to the shop.  Wilde and Sons’ wasn’t going anywhere, I said, but he wouldn’t listen.  He couldn’t be dissuaded when he set his mind to something.  He left early the next morning, sneaking out before I could wake; we had argued the night before.  I was angry at first when I awoke, but as the day wore on and the reports of fires or in some cases gunfire spread, the anxiety returned.  The fact that I had never apologized to him worried me the whole day.  He had said he would be home late, the previous night, and wasn’t able to return home until after dinner.  I couldn’t sleep that night from both worry and the spreading chaos.** ”  She drank the rest of her wine in a single long gulp.  She needed every drop of it right now.  “ **That second night of rioting, the two of us made up.  A part of me now is glad we did, it made some small part of putting him to rest easier.  Some sixth sense told me something was wrong on the morning of the nineteenth.  I let John check on the shop just before noon, and he promised to be home directly afterwards.  He never returned.** ”  Judy’s heart sank and she felt her throat tighten.  She had known this moment was coming, but hearing everything out loud brought so many other events with it.  Her disastrous press conference a year ago was chief among them, followed by all of the instances of unrest and disturbances she had caused in the months after.

Amidst her growing anguish Judy managed a whisper “ **How?** ”  Marie Ann moved from her plush armchair to the worn sofa next to her guest.  “Smoke inhalation. **He died trying to help others.  The only account I know of has him saving the lives of a family of Aardwolves.  They had owned a small drug store on Tinpenny Street and lived above their shop.  Apparently, he broke open a jammed door and the canids managed to escape out of a back staircase.  John was last in line and no one checked to see if he had made it out.** ”  With that, the dam burst and Judy’s tears flowed freely.

Her mother in law was already there to dry her face and provide solace.  They both decided they didn’t need any more wine after that.  An effort was made to avoid such heavy subjects for the remainder of the evening.  Some of the more harmless precinct rumors were shared as was several book recommendations.  Before she began to prepare for her departure, Judy had one final thing to ask.  “ **Marie.** ”  She started, careful about where her question could lead.  “ **At the height of the Nighthowler Incident last year, I said somethings without thinking.  Because of that, I nearly tore this city apart and ruined the lives of so many innocent mammals, you included.  Could you forgive me?** ”  Marie stood her daughter up on the couch and embraced her tightly.  Then she looked Judy straight in the eyes and asked a question of her own.  “ **May I mark you, daughter?** ”  Judy nodded and then felt the vixen’s cheek gently rub the top of her head.  “ **Daughter, Judy.  I had already forgiven you months ago.  Nick never was quite the same after the Ranger Scouts.  He lost that spark of hope that had somehow survived the loss of his father.  The last time we spoke, we fought.  I know both of us are ashamed of some of the things we said.  The next time we had any contact was almost twenty years later, a week before I visited your apartment.  He told me he was so sorry for everything he had said and done.  He wanted to apologize face to face, and also have me meet the female who changed him for the better.  I still don’t know how he managed to find my number after all those years, but I am glad he did.** ”  The two embraced again while Marie continued speaking.  “ **Judy, you brought me back my son.  By both your words and actions you are more than forgiven.** ”  With that, Judy felt a small weight lift from her shoulders and heart.  While she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to fully reconcile her words at the press conference, a small portion of the guilt she carried had dissipated.

Judy was leaving much later than she had expected.  The weather had taken a turn for the worse, as cold winds had scythed south out of Tundratown.  Despite the mess it tended to create, she found herself wishing her winter coat had grown in again.  Her arms were already through the sleeves of her insulated jacket when the sound of claws on tile flooring reached her ears.  Marie had come to bid her farewell.  “ **Travel safe, daughter.  May your home be warm and dry.** ”  The vulpine benediction echoed ones she had grown up with.  “ _And may peace and happiness…_ ”  Part way through her response she realized what language she was speaking and she flushed red with embaressment.  Marie couldn’t have understood a word, but was clearly interested.  “We could try common.”  She said sympathetically.  Judy shook her head, she was adamant to get this right.  “ **And may yours always be vibrant and welcoming.** ”  They both smiled as the traditional response was completed.  Judy looped the scarf around her neck and tucked the ends into the jacket to keep out the cold.  She opened the door and before her third step Marie had one final thing to say.  “Daughter, please visit again soon.  My door is always open to you and I can promise less grim conversation next time.”  Judy nodded before gritting her teeth and heading for the bus stop.

She had much to think about as the diesel engine rumbled beneath her seat.  History was never a strong topic for her, but there were some things she remembered about The Riots.  Nearly four days of rioting had led to the deaths of forty-five mammals, over a thousand injuries, and several thousand damaged or destroyed buildings.  In order to quell the violence, the entirety of the city-wide police force had to be mobilized, and even then it still took days for the conflict to stop.  Out in the burrows, mammals felt a disconnect from the events.  It was considered a big city issue, something that could never happen out in the countryside.  In truth, they were just ignoring the problems.  Some of her parent’s worries were also explained.  They both grew up with the horror stories of the riots and clearly took them to heart.  They had gotten better, but it was something they would always have in the back of their minds.  Most importantly, it told her more about her mate.  He wasn’t always the easiest mammal to deal with, but they loved each other dearly.  Still, there were some topics he actively avoided and Judy wasn’t willing to press the issue.  She was just unsure how to tell Nick what she had learned.  By the time she had reached her stop however, her mind was made up.

The walk to the front door of the apartment she shared with Nick always seemed to be the furthest part.  Blowing wind just tore away any heat Judy had gathered on the bus.  Luckily for her however, Nick was still awake in the dimly lit apartment when she walked through the door.  He hardly waited for her to take off her coat before his paws were all over her.  His nose twitched as he recognized the mark his mother had left on the top of her head.  “I think she likes you.”  He said, leading the two of them towards the bedroom.  As they walked together, Nick was careful to guide her around the few obstacles she could trip on.  “I know she does.”  Judy replied.  “I want you to know, however, that we talked about some heavy things over a few glasses of wine.”  Nick’s head tilted to the side, which was all the response she needed.  “We spoke about your father.  Sorry if you feel like I went behind your back or…”  Anything more she could have said stopped when Nick knelt down to look her in the eye.  Her violets met his greens as he spoke.  “ _Judy, I love you more than anything.  If you feel the need to ask someone else something I have been unwilling to talk about, go right ahead.  I am just happy the two of you got along so well._ ”  He kissed her before the two went their separate ways to prepare for bed.  Before he turned out the lights however, he had one last thing to say.  “ _Next time, we should bring the wine.  I think I know something she might like._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this was a big one. I had no idea just how large this thing would end up being when I started, but the more I researched and wrote, the bigger it got.
> 
> The Riots are fairly heavily based on the Detroit riots of 1967, one of the largest incidents of its kind in the US.  
> One of the things that came to mind, what that Vulpine culture places emphasis on the names of things. Which is why Nick seems so unwilling to use Judy's name during the movie, unless the situation is serious enough to warrant it.
> 
> While I have a few ideas for where I would like to investigate next, having some outside ideas helps me greatly. It keeps me from running myself into a mental rut. Feel free to leave comments or criticisms, I will attempt to respond to whatever is posted.


End file.
